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Just started my journey to a 700+ score, starting with a 640 without any knowledge of what the GMAT was. After reading some things, it's given me confidence that a 700+ is possible!

I have a question though: my goal is to apply R1 to HBS, Stanford, Sloan, and possibly Wharton. Deadlines are roughly around September 15th for these.I scored a 46Q and 33V, yielding me a 650, on my second practice test after a week of just doing a lot of questions (which clearly didn't help... I think I need to actually learn) I ordered some MGMAT books but they have yet to get here.

So, with that being said, I saw a thread that said to schedule a test for 30 days in advance if you are within 60 points of your target score! Since I'm at a 650, does that mean I should schedule it now? I am obviously not 100% positive that I can get my score to a 700 in just 30 days, and I don't want to have to waste my money.

Thanks, all advice is much appreciated.

edit: in the verbal section, I believe I only got 2 CR questions wrong, with the most being from SC.I haven't studied at all for quant, I got a few questions wrong that were just stupid mistakes, and the rest were tricky problems that I would now know how to do.

I don't think that there's any magic formula when it comes to scheduling the test date. You might as well wait until you're confident that you're approaching your goal; if you're still in a general learning phase, then it's probably still too early to worry about a test date. It might not hurt to take a peek at the appointments at your local test center (if you're in a crowded area, you might have to plan ahead somewhat), but rushing into the test center definitely won't help your score.

It looks like you're on the right track with your studies, though. A 46 in quant is pretty solid already, so you won't necessarily need to pick up more than another point or two to give yourself a good shot at a 700+. The real battle is in verbal, since it's awfully tough to get to a 700 without scoring around a 40 on the verbal section. But the good news is that sentence correction is arguably the most "learnable" part of the test, so I think it's great that most of your verbal errors are coming from SC. If you put in enough time and really learn the rules thoroughly, you'll be fine.

Don't worry about the idioms chapter of the MGMAT sentence correction book (there are somewhere around 20,000 idioms in the English language, and especially if you're a native speaker, there's no point in memorizing a buttload of them), but squeeze as much awesomeness as you can from the rest of the guide. It sounds like you're off to a great start, and I'll look forward to a triumphant debrief in a month or two.